Volatility
by knockplease
Summary: noun; liable to change rapidly and unpredictably, esp. for the worse. ZATR


**A/N: **I wrote this for one of my first reviewers, Famelia Ly, a _long _time ago because she asked for some ZATR, and I thought I'd try my hand at it. PS: if anyone ever has a prompt for me, feel free to send a message. I learned to use the system properly!

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**Volatility**

She laughs aloud as he writhes in pain, his skin sizzling and burning and stained with fresh barbecue sauce. She hears Dib laugh with her, and a chorus of several other students in making a social mockery of the horribly-disguised alien. The smile on her face never wavers, but inside she feels herself seething.

She tells herself its hate that drives her.

But what she hates the most right now is that she's laughing, and that these wretched little brainless Earth-children are laughing with her. She hates these moronic, ignorant pests for making a spectacle of him like this because even though she laughs with them, she knows somewhere that she's only feigning amusement.

Later that day she locks him in a closet with a Chihuahua after he attempts to give her a small bouquet of daisies.

She walks home with a frown, smiling when she remembers the flowers she's carrying. She'll put them in water and wait for him to leave something at her door so she can blast him in the face with a squirt gun.

There's a part of her that enjoys this.

She tells herself it's because she hates him. Because she's finally seeing him suffer after all this time. With every rejection and every failed attempt he just tries harder and harder, looking ever more pathetic.

She wants to get under his skin. She wants to leave her mark so deep it'll never heal, so he'll _always _remember. She wants him to think of _nothing_ but her, the way she's thought of nothing but him.

He never noticed her. Even yelling at the top her lungs hadn't been enough to get his attention. That's all changed now.

She tells herself that hate is her motive.

When she wakes up in the middle of the night, shaking and sweat-covered, breathing in short, heaving gasps, she doesn't know _what _to tell herself. She curls into a ball and hugs her knees, desperately trying to think of a rational explanation for why she's all of a sudden overwhelmed like this… and some kind of legitimate justification for why it involves _him _of all people. She sees the daisies glowing, bathed in shadow and silvery moonlight sitting in the vase on the dresser across the room, and she tells herself she hates him.

She can't take much more of this.

It's starting to become a threat to her mission and she refuses to sabotage herself. Not after the all the time and energy and delicate, intricate planning she's put into it. She's not going to let him win again. She's here to take back what ought to have been hers, not to share it with the person that ripped it from her hands and left her for dead. Not to make amends or offer second chances.

Her blood boils as anger mounts within her small frame. The primal urge to ignore evolution and assume a low, base fighting stance, and snarl, baring her teeth with venomous, narrowed eyes consumes her senses and she can think of nothing but beautiful violence.

She wants to do terrible things to him.

The _wrong kind_ of terrible. Things of which Irkens dare not speak. Horribly _biological_ things, the sorts of things that _humans_ do. She's confused and exhausted and her head is spinning out of control. She feels herself burn when her eyes ghost over him. It's that same empty ache, that unfulfilled yearning she feels in dreams when her pulse races and she loses control of her senses. She can hardly sit through a single subject in that horrible excuse for a learning institution called Skool. At the other end of the room he's still too close, and at this rate, she thinks she'll lose her mind.

She hides behind her empty mantra and tells herself she hates him.

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So there you have it! Hope it was more enjoyable than drilling nails through your head! I'd **really** appreciate it if you'd review. Even something simple critique would be nice. Flames will be laughed at.


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